Power system stabilizer tuning comparison for WECC standard-based and PSO-based methods

Power system oscillatory instability has become a growing concern due to increasing complexity of the grid evolved from large-scale interconnections along with heavy power transfer conditions. Power system stabilizer (PSS), then, has been widely used to enhance system dynamic stability performances. Thus, tuning PSS parameters to achieve satisfactory performance during power system disturbances is an essential task. This paper investigates the power system dynamic performances affected by the tuned PSS parameters obtained using the two different methods. The first method is by adopting the Western Electricity Coordinating Council (WECC) standard, and the second method is based on particle swarm optimization (PSO) application. Comparison of the results obtained using the two methods was illustrated using the frequency response analysis (Bode plots), the modal analysis (eigenvalues), as well as time-domain transient stability simulation. The results indicate that a compliance with the WECC standard on PSS tuning may not guarantee good system performances, and therefore enhancing the performance could be augmented using the optimization-based technique.